Petunia Circadia

Hello all! if you've been looking on Instagram you'll know that I've been working on (and teasing you all about) this painting, so I'm really excited to be able to explain all now.... 

... I'm currently Artist in Residence in the Plant Molecular Science Department at Royal Holloway University (funded by the lovely folk at Ted Baker - more info here). As part of this exciting project I've been speaking to gardeners, botanists, breeders and scientists to explore the possibilities of creating new and altering existing plants to reflect my drawings. One of the most interesting projects I had come across in my research was from the USA 'Petunia Circadia' by RevBio, and I had the fantastic opportunity to meet with the two scientists behind the project; Keira Havens and Nikolai Braun whilst they were in London earlier this month.

Petunia Circadia is a petunia that will be developed by Keira and Nikolai to change colour throughout the day. It will start out pink in the morning, travel through purple and end up blue in the evening and yes, when you wake up it will be pink again! This is a long term project, the first stage of which is to create petunias that change colour from white to red (using science rather than dyes!). These plants will then be used by artist Prof. Helen Storey to create a London based installation in response to the Paris Climate Change Summit later this year. In order to fund this exciting work they are launching a crowdfunding campaign here. 

I am so excited by the potential of this project, and so have joined forces with them to create their glorious Petunia Circadia, visualising its colour change over the course of a single day. Prints of my painting will be sent to individuals that back their campaign as a thank you for their support. I'll be updating this blogpost with the link to the campaign as soon as it goes live, so please check back next week to find out more. If you can't wait follow the links within this post to learn more about RevBio and the science behind their ideas!

Have a wonderful week whatever you get up to and I'll be back next time to tell you all about my upcoming sketchbook trip to Brussels and Bruges! x